Kate Marshall.
Retail media is widely acknowledged as the third wave of digital advertising and the next major evolution of how brands reach consumers, but amongst the justified attention it gets, what’s often not as clearly understood is the collision of these two complex worlds - retail and media.
We’ve seen a slew of new retail media networks launching in Australia. Aside from the big two behemoths - Woolworths’ Cartology and Coles 360, other major retailers such as Bunnings, Petbarn, Chemist Warehouse, Officeworks, David Jones, Metcash, have all made their moves to cash in on the predicted $3 billion market this year, with more set to follow.
For retailers, brands, advertisers, and agencies, the confluence of these two distinct and separate disciplines are often oversimplified. Because, this isn’t media as usual, and it’s not retail as we know it. It’s a hybrid model that demands new thinking, capabilities, and a deep understanding of the businesses engaged to successfully drive growth for all.
The retail in retail media - learning the business we’re monetising
Retail isn’t a channel, it’s a business. A fast-moving, messy, highly nuanced machine powered by relationships, negotiation, data, and margin pressure. And unlike most media environments, it’s grounded in the real world, including product launches, promotions, store rollouts, joint business plans, supply chains, trade spend, shelf space, foot traffic, and stock availability.
Media doesn’t sit on top of this machine. It has to plug into it. Because media in retail isn’t just about audiences and impressions, it’s about helping suppliers grow their business within the retailers’ own ecosystem.
That means understanding how supplier negotiations and trade budgets work; how promotional calendars and merchandising resets drive timing; ways to consolidate merchandise and marketing planning; how teams are structured and decisions get made; and most importantly, how media can serve real-world sales outcomes.
Retail media is at its best when it strengthens the supplier relationship, not complicates it. It should be one more lever to align partners around category growth and shopper outcomes. And it’s our job, as platforms, partners, and advocates, to make sure media doesn’t just fit into a plan, but fits into how retail actually works.
The media in retail media - why this isn’t just another ad channel
The bit everyone gets excited about is the media, but we’ve lost sight of what makes it different from every other form of media. And here’s the truth. Retail media doesn’t play by the same rules.
This isn’t programmatic with a barcode. It’s not just a new place to run the same old ads. The moment media enters a retail environment, it stops behaving like traditional media. Media in this context is not just about reaching consumers. It’s a commercial tool that can influence supplier deals, shift promotional timelines, and help unlock greater distribution. It shows up in joint business plans. It gets debated in quarterly reviews and lives alongside, and sometimes competes with, trade spend and shopper marketing budgets.
And brand partners and agencies are no longer just working with marketing. They’re negotiating with merchants, commercial leads, operations teams, data governance, and legal. Every campaign is a team sport, and if you don’t understand the rules of the game, you don’t get to play.
Even measurement, the holy grail for retail media’s attraction from both retailers and brands, is more complex than it seems. Closed-loop reporting - tying spending to actual sales - is powerful, but it’s only as good as the retailer’s data systems, privacy controls, and SKU-level integrity. Getting a clean read is less about tech, and more about collaboration, trust and knowing how to operate inside a retailers’ four walls.
Retail media isn’t a bolt-on channel or a one-size-fits-all solution. It’s a collision of commerce and communication that requires more than just budget and banners. The moment we stop treating retail media as just ‘media in a new place’, and start respecting the unique complexity of the space, is when we unlock its true potential.
Kate Marshall is director of customer success APAC at Zitcha.